A private investigator that tried to hack into President Donald Trump’s tax returns has been found guilty and has been sentenced to 1 1/2 years in a federal prison. Former Louisiana private investigator Jordan Hamlett tried to use President Trump’s Social Security number to hack into his tax returns pleaded guilty in order to get a lighter sentence.
He could have gotten 5 years for his offense.
Prosecutor Ryan Rezaei said: “You’re talking about potentially altering a presidential election. Whether it was for fame or notoriety or money, we’ll never know.”
Hamlett told the court: “I was trying to help, and I made a bad decision. It was a mistake, and it was a bad mistake. The lesson’s been learned.”
US District Judge John deGravelles, an Obama appointee said: “This is not about the election: who won, who lost, politics. This was not a noble purpose.”
For years, the media and Democrats have been trying to get their hands on Trump’s tax returns. It is not a requirement that you do so and the president decided not to. That is his prerogative. I don’t blame him because the lamestream press twists everything so much that reality disappears.
NBC host Rachel Maddow obtained two leaked pages of Trump’s 2005 tax return in a much-hyped show in March 2017, with the White House pointing out that the disclosure was an illegal act.
A White House official at the time said, “You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago.”
New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet said prior to the election in 2016 that he was also willing to risk jail time in order to get Trump’s returns. Acknowledging that the disclosure of an unauthorized tax return is a violation of federal law, Baquet argued that the president’s returns would be material information for the public because Trump at the time was “a presidential candidate whose whole campaign is built on his success as a businessman and his wealth.”